The Duchess of Malfi

Themes
Corruption
Corruption is one of John Webster's most pervasive themes in The Duchess of Malfi, operating on at least three levels: political, moral, and
physical (bodily). Antonio Bologna introduces the theme in the opening lines of Act 1, Scene 1. In commenting to Delio about the French
court, he remarks that politics function like a fountain that can be easily poisoned at the source.

The play furnishes numerous examples of political and moral corruption in Malfi, most of them directly linked to two of the court's most
powerful figures, the Cardinal and Ferdinand, who are the Duchess of Malfi's brothers. Ferdinand is tyrannical and cruel, whereas the
Cardinal has suborned, or secretly persuaded, hired murderers and keeps a married woman, Julia, as his mistress. Both men relentlessly
oppress their sister the Duchess, forbidding her to remarry and coveting her wealth. In addition, Ferdinand, the Duchess's twin, harbors
incestuous desires.

Corruption, however, is not confined to the Cardinal and Ferdinand. Daniel de Bosola, who is one of the play's most important characters,
also exemplifies corruption for most of the drama. It is revealed that, prior to the play's opening, he has been a hired killer for the Cardinal. He
serves Ferdinand as a hired "intelligencer" (spy) in the Duchess's household. Then, after betraying her secrets to the brothers, he carries out
the executions of the Duchess, her maid, and her children. All the while he is portrayed as a melancholy malcontent who seems obsessed,
almost to the point of nihilism, by bodily decay and death.
Deception
The tendrils of deceit extend to almost all the major characters in the play. The Cardinal, Ferdinand, and Daniel de Bosoladissemble, or
present a false notion of themselves, continuously. Indeed deception seems part of their nature. In contrast to innate dishonesty, however,
virtuous characters such as the Duchess of Malfi, Antonio Bologna, and Delio are forced to adopt deception.

Ferdinand sets the pattern in Act 1 when he persuades his sister to hire Bosola for "provisorship o'th' horse." Ferdinand's true purpose, it is
clear, is to plant a spy in the Duchess's household—specifically to monitor her marital status. In Act 2 Bosola carries out an elaborate
stratagem, or scheme, with apricots to ascertain whether the Duchess is pregnant.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal's deceit is apparent in his lecherous relationship with Julia, who cuckolds her husband Castruccio to serve the
prelate as his mistress. Sarcastically and hypocritically, the Cardinal declares it would take one of Galileo's telescopes "to find a constant
woman." In a grim instance of situational irony, the Cardinal murders Julia by means of a poisoned Bible.

The web of deception in the play is so elaborate and complex that virtuous characters are involved as well as evil ones. For example, Delio
recommends the Duchess and Antonio spread the rumor that Bosola's apricots have been poisoned. To distract attention from the Duchess's
childbirth, she fabricates an accusation of embezzlement against Antonio. And, when Bosola recommends to the Duchess a bogus pilgrimage
to Loreto to conceal her flight to Ancona, she readily assents.
Cruelty
The theme of cruelty, like the theme of deception, intersects and overlaps with the theme of corruption in the play. The principal exemplar of
cruelty is Ferdinand, the Duchess of Malfi's twin brother. Four scenes with Ferdinand stand out in the dramatization of this character trait. In
Act 2, Scene 5, Ferdinand's volcanic rage at his sister leaves even the Cardinal taken aback. Ferdinand wishes, for example, he could bake
the bodies of the Duchess and her lover so that no smoke or steam would escape into the air. In Act 3, Scene 2 Ferdinand rails at his sister in
person, calling her a "vile woman" and exclaiming he will never see her again. He gives her a dagger, presumably for her to use to commit
suicide.

In Act 4, Scenes 1 and 2, Ferdinand's cruelty reaches a fever pitch. Determined to push the Duchess over the line into madness and despair,
Ferdinand uses Daniel de Bosola to arrange an interview with her in total darkness in Scene 1. Here he delivers a dead man's hand to her,
clearly implying that it is the hand of Antonio Bologna, her husband. When Bosola restores the lights and draws a curtain, the Duchess must
suffer a second shock: a display of wax figures that simulate her husband and children in death.

In Act 4, Scene 2 Ferdinand's psychological torture continues with the hellish noises and gibberish of eight madmen—insane residents of a
local hospital gathered by Ferdinand specifically to terrify and shock his sister.

Although Ferdinand is the character most notable for cruelty in the play, both the Cardinal and Bosola exhibit this trait as well. The Cardinal
has no hesitation, for example, in tyrannizing the Duchess and in poisoning his mistress Julia, while Bosola, for most of the drama, carries out
the orders of his employers, including the murder of the Duchess and her children, even while lamenting his own debasement.
Heroism
The two characters with a substantial claim to heroism in the play are the Duchess of Malfi and Antonio Bologna. The Duchess risks her
position and her life in remarrying, against the express wishes of both her brothers. Furthermore, she woos and wins a man of lower social
status, flying against custom and court precedent. She is keenly aware of the risks she takes, admitting in Act 1 to embarking on a journey in
a pathless wilderness.

In Act 3, Scene 2, when the menacing Ferdinand sneaks into her bedchamber carrying a dagger, the Duchess does not shrink. Instead she
says, "For know, whether I am doomed to live or die, / I can do both like a prince." Later in this scene she reveals herself as a woman of
action, improvising a fabricated accusation of embezzlement against Antonio to cover his tracks as he escapes to Ancona. At the end of Act 3,
Scene 5, when she is arrested by Daniel de Bosola on her brothers' orders, she declares herself "armed 'gainst misery." In Act 4, when she
meets her greatest obstacles and finally suffers execution, she remains both magnanimous and courageous—qualities that resound in her
simple assertion of dignity: "I am Duchess of Malfi still."

Antonio is also shown as heroic, but in somewhat more muted terms. In Act 1 he lauds the "right noble Duchess" and then accepts her
wooing with passion and admiration. Recognizing Bosola as a cunning pretender, Antonio defies him in Act 2, Scene 3. Unfortunately, he
makes the error of dropping the paper on which he has cast a horoscope for his newborn son. Bosola is thus provided with some crucial
information, which he promptly transmits to the Duchess's brothers. Ever faithful to the Duchess, Antonio strives to keep up the spirits of the
beleaguered couple in Act 3, Scene 5 when he advises, "Make patience a noble fortitude, / And think not how unkindly we are used."

Despite the foreboding of the echo scene (Act 5, Scene 3), Antonio proceeds in his plan to confront the Cardinal. It is then that he meets a
tragic end, as Bosola stabs him by mistake (Act 5, Scene 4). He dies with the wish his son will "fly the courts of princes."
Metatheatre
As in a number of plays of the period—for example, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Ben Jonson's Volpone—The Duchess of Malficontains
prominent references to the theater and to acting. These metatheatrical elements remind audiences they are watching a play that has been
written, staged, and acted to provoke their curiosity, admiration, and thought.

The first such moment occurs when the Duchess of Malfi lightly shrugs off her brothers' menacing admonitions not to remarry. "I think this
speech between you both was studied, / It came so roundly off," she says in Act 1. In Act 4, Scene 1, after the Duchess has endured the
horrifying sight of a dead man's hand and the wax figures of Antonio Bologna and the children, she exclaims to Daniel de Bosola, "I account
this world a tedious theatre, / For I do play a part in't 'gainst my will." In the following scene, she tells Cariola, "Fortune seems only to have her
eyesight / To behold my tragedy."

In the play's final scene Bosola again emphasizes the theme of metatheater by identifying himself as an "actor" in the story, "much 'gainst
mine own good nature" (Act 5, Scene 5). When Malateste asks Bosola how Antonio met his death, Bosola—who has killed Antonio
accidentally—responds, "In a mist: I know not how; / Such a mistake as I have often seen / In a play." The theater, he implies, holds up a
mirror for humans to glimpse the "gloomy world" in which they live. This is both the theater's power and its terror.